Kamis, 18 April 2013

Killed by Cars

Motorcycle riders are an example of innocent people who can be killed by cars. According to RideSmartFlorida.com, 415 motorcycle riders were killed in 2009 due to fatal injuries from traffic crashes. Like pedestrians and bicyclists, motorcyclists are at an unfair disadvantage when a driver loses control of his vehicle due to negligence like texting and distracted driving. They are no match for a car, truck, or van’s impact.

A sad reality of representing families of deceased clients, including teens riding motorcycles and pedestrians killed by Florida drivers, is that these deaths are often senseless. A victim may also leave behind loved ones who will experience suffering. When the deceased victim is a parent of minor children, there are more long-term effects, such as the fact that those children will no longer receive financial support from their parent because of a driver’s negligence.

Families of bicyclists and other victims killed by drivers who were texting or engaging in another kind of distracted driving while operating their cars seek justice. They wonder what legal rights they have related to their decedent’s death. Answers are best explained by a licensed attorney, contact a lawyer immediately in Wrongful Death.

In the event of a wrongful death, here are some rights to pursue:

Loss of Earnings

A wrongful death attorney will study many facts in the preparation of a wrongful death case. For example, she will examine relationships between survivors and a deceased victim. She will calculate how much of a victim’s net income should have been available for distribution to each survivor. This information is especially important for calculating how much money the minor children, including surviving teens, might lose because of their parent’s death and inability to earn wages.

Mental Pain and Suffering

The minor children and the spouse of a decedent may recover because they have lost the victim’s companionship. Adult children of a decedent may be entitled to claim lost parental companionship, instruction, and guidance and mental pain and suffering if the parent victim had no surviving spouse.

Parents of a deceased minor child may be entitled to recover because of their deceased minor child’s death. In addition, parents of an adult child with no survivors may seek a recovery in that child’s wrongful death case.

Expenses

An important task is establishing one of the survivors as a personal representative of the decedent. Part of the legal process will include identifying other survivors who might seek to make a recovery in the same case. Once survivors are established, they may be entitled to make a recovery for medical expenses and funeral expenses paid on behalf of the deceased victim.